Kosovo comes of age without losing hope of joining the EU

PristinaKosovo has now come of age. On February 17th, it celebrated 18 years since the country declared its independence from Serbia. In those 18 years, the youngest country in Europe has achieved recognition from 121 states, including most members of the European Union. with the exception of SpainGreece, Romania, Slovakia, and Cyprus.

On the anniversary, the capital, Pristina, awoke to a snowfall that did not prevent Kosovo Albanians from going out to celebrate their independence. However, on this anniversary, the country's blue national flag was barely visible; it was the red flag with the emblem of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) that filled the streets. Stages throughout the city center hosted representatives of this former guerrilla group, considered a terrorist organization by Serbia during and after the conflict. Chants praising the KLA echoed throughout the city, and what was supposed to be an official celebration ended up taking on the air of a political demonstration.

This is because, coinciding with this anniversary, the final arguments were being heard at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague in the trial against former Kosovar President Hashim Thaçi, also a former political leader of the KLA, as well as against other former guerrilla leaders. The trial seeks to clarify their alleged responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity—including murders, persecution, and arbitrary detentions—allegedly committed against the Serbian population, as well as against Kosovo Albanians considered collaborators, during and after the conflict between 1998 and 1999. The Kosovo Specialist Chambers was created in 2015 by the Kosovar Parliament to investigate the allegations contained in a 2011 Council of Europe report. Unlike the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, this body focuses specifically on alleged crimes committed by members of the KLA. The defendants plead not guilty and maintain that their struggle was a war of liberation against Serbian repression.

The Kosovo conflict erupted openly in 1998, when the KLA intensified its armed insurgency against the security forces of Serbia, then part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Slobodan Milošević. Belgrade's response included military and police operations that resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanian civilians. In March 1999, NATO began a bombing campaign against Serbian targets that lasted for 78 days. The conflict ended in June 1999 with the withdrawal of Serbian forces and the establishment of a UN-backed international administration in Kosovo, a precursor to the unilateral declaration of independence in 2008.

Against the trial in The Hague

“History cannot be rewritten,” read one of the signs on Mother Teresa Boulevard, which runs through the center of Pristina. For Kosovo Albanians, the mere indictment of the guerrilla group represents a national front. From the Albanian-majority areas of Kosovo, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) were neighbors who defended the community against the Serbian siege. “Since the KLA was a paramilitary guerrilla organization, it didn’t have a hierarchical structure, meaning it didn’t have a leader. That’s why we are responding to the Hague trial,” explains Asllan, a young Albanian resident of the capital. For its part, the Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague stated that there is “an extraordinarily wide range of evidence,” including public statements, regulations, orders, intelligence and military reports, police reports, notebooks and diaries, minutes of meetings, inspections, appointments, and testimonies. The prosecution has requested a 45-year prison sentence for Hashim Thaçi.

"Kosovo in prison" reads the Newborn monument (new beginning, in Catalan) in Pristina. A sign and barriers surrounded the monument by activists in an action intended to reflect the sense of injustice many Kosovars feel regarding the trials in The Hague, seen as an attempt to prosecute Kosovo's struggle for independence.

Waiting for Brussels

The Newborn is Kosovo's iconic monument, symbolizing the new beginning of what was once a Serbian province after its independence. Now, almost two decades later, and although the Balkan country has made significant progress as a state, it remains immersed in its complex path toward European integration. Kosovo obtained the status of a potential candidate for accession to the European Union and formally submitted its application in December 2022. Since January 2024, Kosovar citizens have also been able to travel visa-free within the Schengen Area. Furthermore, Kosovo has maintained a clear alignment with the United States since its independence, considered by a large part of the population to be the decisive ally in 1999. This alliance is stronger than ever today, as Kosovo was one of the founding members of the US president's Peace Council. Domestically, after months of institutional gridlock, a government was finally formed, in which Albin Kurti has renewed his mandate as prime minister And thus it has been able to unlock part of the legislative agenda demanded by the EU. At the same time, Brussels has begun to gradually lift the restrictive measures imposed in 2023 by Tensions in the north of the country, which has a Serbian majority.But the normalization of relations with Serbia remains the main condition for advancing the accession process. The European Union, acting as mediator in the dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade, has insisted on the implementation of the agreements reached in 2013 and within the framework of the European plan presented in 2023. Although the situation has partially stabilized, mutual distrust and the lack of formal recognition by Serbia still shape the future.